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05 - Starved Rock- A Historical Sketch by Eaton G. Osman · Starved Rock- A Historical Sketch

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  Speaker 1: Section five of Starved Rock, a historical sketch by Eton
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  Speaker 1: g Assman. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain
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  Speaker 1: recording by Veronica Jenkins Section five Starved Rock, Fortified and
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  Speaker 1: Kismut Starved Rock Fortified. Strangers came to build a tower
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  Speaker 1: and threw their ashes over land. Thorreaux Lesal takes possession.
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  Speaker 1: Le Salle spent the winter of sixteen eighty to eighty
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  Speaker 1: one at Fort Miami, organizing a league of the Western
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  Speaker 1: Indians to resist the Iroquois. The league's principal town to
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  Speaker 1: be located near the Rock on Illinois River. Then he
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  Speaker 1: returned to Canada via Mackinaw, where he again meant Tonty.
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  Speaker 1: Having arranged his affairs, he returned in November sixteen eighty
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  Speaker 1: one to Fort Miami, where he found his Indian allies,
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  Speaker 1: with eighteen of whom twenty three Frenchmen, including Tonti, He
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  Speaker 1: set out again for the Illinois. They passed the site
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  Speaker 1: of the future Chicago January fourth, sixteen eighty two, and
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  Speaker 1: pushed on without stopping, to the mouth of the Mississippi,
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  Speaker 1: which he reached April ninth, sixteen eighty two. Here LaSalle
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  Speaker 1: in the name of the most High, mighty, invincible, Prince Louis,
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  Speaker 1: fourteenth of the name, took possession of the country and
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  Speaker 1: named it Louisiana. The weather beaten voyagers joining their voices
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  Speaker 1: in the great Hymn of Vexilia Reggis, which closed the ceremony.
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  Speaker 1: The banners of Heaven's King advance. The mystery of the
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  Speaker 1: Cross shines. Fourth. On that day, the realm of France
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  Speaker 1: received on parchment a stupendous accession, a region that stretched
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  Speaker 1: from the Alleghanies to the Rocky Mountains, from the Rio
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  Speaker 1: Grande and the Gulf to the farthest springs of the Missouri.
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  Speaker 1: All by the virtue of a feeble hearth human voice
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  Speaker 1: inaudible at half a mile, LaSalle had now written his
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  Speaker 1: name in history. There remained the greater task of consummating
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  Speaker 1: the schemes of his pregnant brain, the founding of a
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  Speaker 1: permanent colony on the Illinois and the abandonment of the
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  Speaker 1: route to France via Canada for one via Mississippi and
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  Speaker 1: the Gulf the Illinois colony at Starved Rock. The key
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  Speaker 1: of the situation was to serve the double purpose of
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  Speaker 1: a bulwark against the Iroquois and a place of storage
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  Speaker 1: for the furs of all the western tribes, and he
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  Speaker 1: hoped in the following year to secure an outlet for
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  Speaker 1: this colony and for all the trade of the valley
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  Speaker 1: of the Mississippi, by occupying the mouth of that river
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  Speaker 1: by a fort and another colony. At the moment of
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  Speaker 1: his triumph, as he returned from the Gulf, Lsal was
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  Speaker 1: taken with a dangerous illness and became unable to proceed.
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  Speaker 1: He sent Tonty forward to Mackinaw, therefore to despatch his
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  Speaker 1: report to Grants, and then repaired to the Rock. In September, however,
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  Speaker 1: the two men met at Mackinaw, where, hearing a rumor
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  Speaker 1: of a coming attack on the Western Indians by the Iroquois, which,
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  Speaker 1: if successful, would be the ruination of the project, Lesal
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  Speaker 1: abandoned his intention of going immediately to France, and with
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  Speaker 1: Tanti repaired at once to the Rock, where in December
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  Speaker 1: sixteen eighty two they began to entrench themselves. They cut
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  Speaker 1: away the forests that crowned the rock, built storehouses and
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  Speaker 1: dwellings of its remains, dragged timber up the rugged pathway,
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  Speaker 1: and encircled the summit with a palisade. Thus the winter passed.
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  Speaker 1: The Indians, who saw on LaSalle their defense from the Iroquois,
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  Speaker 1: gathered around his stronghold, like the timorous peasantry of the
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  Speaker 1: Middle Ages, around the rock built castle of their feudal lord.
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  Speaker 1: From the wooden ramparts of Saint Louis. High and inaccessible
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  Speaker 1: as an eagle's nest, LaSalle looked down on a concourse
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  Speaker 1: of wild human life. Lodges of bark and rushes, or
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  Speaker 1: cabins of logs were clustered on the open plain or
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  Speaker 1: along the edges of the bordering forests. Squaws, labored warriors
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  Speaker 1: lounged in the sun, Naked children whooped and gamboled on
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  Speaker 1: the grass. Beyond the river a mile and a half
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  Speaker 1: to the left, the banks were studded once more with
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  Speaker 1: the lodges of the Illinois, who, to the number of
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  Speaker 1: six thousand, had returned since their defeat to this their
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  Speaker 1: favorite dwelling place. Scattered along the valley or the neighboring
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  Speaker 1: prairie were the cantonments of a half score of other tribes,
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  Speaker 1: and fragments of tribes gathered under the protecting aegis of
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  Speaker 1: the French Chanos. From the Ohio, Abenakis from Maine, Miamis,
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  Speaker 1: from the sources of the kanki Qui, with others whose
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  Speaker 1: barbarous names are hardly worth the record, and all four
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  Speaker 1: thousand warriors or twenty thousand souls. Nor were these LaSalle's
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  Speaker 1: only dependents. By the terms of his patents, he held
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  Speaker 1: scenorial rights over this wild domain, and he now began
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  Speaker 1: to grant it out in parcels to his followers. These, however,
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  Speaker 1: were as yet but a score a lawless band trained
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  Speaker 1: in forest license. The village of the Shannows was probably
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  Speaker 1: located on the edge of the bluff south of Starved Rock,
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  Speaker 1: at the intersection of the two ravines, where the remains
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  Speaker 1: of their rude earthwork may still be traced. Kismet, the
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  Speaker 1: sequel of to day unsadders all the goodliest fellowship of
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  Speaker 1: famous knights, whereof this world has record such as sleep
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  Speaker 1: they sleep the men I loved Tennyson, mort de Arthur,
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  Speaker 1: failure and death. In spite of difficulties and hindrances which
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  Speaker 1: to other men would have seemed insurmountable, LaSalle had succeeded,
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  Speaker 1: and the corner stone of a new empire had been laid.
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  Speaker 1: It only remained to rear the superstructure on LaSalle's foundation. Unfortunately,
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  Speaker 1: Frontenac had been recalled in Labar in Canada reigned in
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  Speaker 1: his stead. LaSalle had his faults, but withal. Had Labarre
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  Speaker 1: been his friend as he might have been, and not
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  Speaker 1: his enemy as he was, the course of American history
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  Speaker 1: might have been changed. Lasu pled with Labarre for his
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  Speaker 1: rights and to be freed from the machinations of courtiers,
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  Speaker 1: fur traders, and an unfriendly priesthood. But all in vain.
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  Speaker 1: The colony in his present state was therefore for ordained
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  Speaker 1: to failure. Whereupon LaSalle, leaving the faithful Tonti to protect
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  Speaker 1: his interests on the Illinois, proceeded to France to organize
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  Speaker 1: a colony which should proceed to the Illinois via the
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  Speaker 1: Gulf and the Mississippi, taking possession of the mouth of
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  Speaker 1: the latter, and thus LaSalle and the Illinois could be
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  Speaker 1: freed from the perennial menace. The provincial government at Quebec,
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  Speaker 1: as always at the court of Louis la Salle, was successful.
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  Speaker 1: Several vessels and some four hundred colonists sailed in sixteen
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  Speaker 1: eighty four for the Mississippi, while La Forest was specially
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  Speaker 1: commissioned to take command of Le Salle's property in Canada,
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  Speaker 1: and Tonty restored to the command at Fort Saint Louis, Labarre,
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  Speaker 1: being in a letter accompanying these commissions, especially scourged by
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  Speaker 1: his royal master, the King. Unfortunately, the command of the
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  Speaker 1: vessels while at sea was given to another. There was
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  Speaker 1: friction among the leaders, and finally a storm drove them
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  Speaker 1: to a haven west of the mouth of the Great River,
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  Speaker 1: and the landing was effected on the shore of the
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  Speaker 1: present state of Texas. The rest is a tale of
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  Speaker 1: miserable disappointment, suffering treachery, failure, and death. While making a
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  Speaker 1: journey in search of the lost Mississippi, LaSalle was murdered
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  Speaker 1: by his own men on Trinity River, Texas, March nineteenth,
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  Speaker 1: sixteen eighty seven. A few of the colonists, including his
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  Speaker 1: brother Jean Cavier and the faithful Joutals, reached Fort Saint Louis,
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  Speaker 1: starved rock. A few had returned to France. The rest
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  Speaker 1: miserably perished. Thus, in the vigor of his manhood, at
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  Speaker 1: the age of forty three died, Robert Cavier de La Salle,
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  Speaker 1: one of the greatest men writes Tonti, of the age,
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  Speaker 1: without question, one of the most remarkable explorers whose names
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  Speaker 1: live in history. It is easy to reckon up his defects,
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  Speaker 1: but it is not easy to hide from sight the
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  Speaker 1: Roman virtues that redeem them, writes Parkmen, beset by a
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  Speaker 1: throng of enemies, he stands like the King of Israel,
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  Speaker 1: head and shoulders above them all. He was a tower
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  Speaker 1: of adamant against whose impregnable front hardship and danger, the
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  Speaker 1: rage of man and of the elements, the southern son,
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  Speaker 1: the northern blast, Fatigue, famine, disease, delay, disappointment, and deferred
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  Speaker 1: hope emptied their quivers in vain. That very pride which
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  Speaker 1: Coriolanus like declared itself most sternly in the thickest press
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  Speaker 1: of foes, has in it something to challenge admiration. Never
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  Speaker 1: under the impenetrable male of Palladoon or Crucite beat a
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  Speaker 1: heart of more intrepid metal than within the stoic panoply
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  Speaker 1: that armed the breast of LaSalle. To estimate aright the
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  Speaker 1: marvels of his patient fortitude, one must follow his track
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  Speaker 1: through the vast scene of his interminable journeyings. Those thousands
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  Speaker 1: of weary miles of forest, marsh and river, where again
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  Speaker 1: and again, in the bitterness of baffled striving, the untiring
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  Speaker 1: pilgrim pushed onward toward the goal which he never was
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  Speaker 1: to attain. America owes him an enduring memory, for in
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  Speaker 1: this masculine figure she sees the pioneer who guided her
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  Speaker 1: to the possession of her richest heritage. And of section
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  Speaker 1: five recorded by Veronica Jenkins in Ottawa, Illinois,